Unemployment rate for vets dropped in December

Jan. 10, 2014 - 03:34PM
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The unemployment rate for Post-9/11 veterans, as well as for the vet population as a whole, fell sharply in December, while the nation's unemployment rate also dipped, Labor Department data show.

As the U.S. economy added 74,000 jobs, the overall unemployment rate fell from 7.0 percent in November to 6.7 percent in December, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Meanwhile, unemployment for the latest generation of vets plummeted from November's 9.9 percent to 7.3 percent.

Bureau statisticians caution against reading too much into the data for any single month, especially veterans jobs reports, which can change dramatically due to their small sample sizes. They also suggest comparing unemployment data from year to year, instead of month to month.

The year-to-year measure makes the unemployment rate drop look even larger. The December 2012 unemployment rate for Post-9/11 vets was 10.8 percent — 3.5 percent higher than December 2013.

The December unemployment rate for all veterans was 5.5 percent, down from from 6.7 percent last month and from 7.0 percent in December 2012.